Sharp falls in Colombo bourse on uncertainty

Even though there was no specific negative news in the peace front, the Colombo stockmarket tumbled this week supported by selling pressure with most investors seen moving away from trading opportunities to stand on the sidelines and monitor market performance, BMS, a broking firm, said in a report.

With daily losses, the ASPI plunged 111.96 points (4.02%) to close at 2675.34 while the MPI slid 104.28 points (2.71%) to end at 3741.30. JKH was in the limelight on Friday and helped push turnover to exceed Rs.600 million which saw 2.96 million shares traded on that day alone and for the week a total of 3.68 million shares changed hands at prices between Rs.147 – Rs.149.75.

Turnover for the week stood at Rs.1.37 billion reflecting a daily average of Rs.274.18 million. Highest contributors were JKH with Rs.545.66 million (39.8%), ACL with Rs.102.06 million (7.44%), DIST with Rs.91.49 million (6.67%), SLT with Rs.88.75 million (6.47%) and TKYO with Rs.80.63 million (5.88%).

Foreigners were daily heavier on the buying side bringing the net inflow for the week to Rs.518.59 million.

With most of the fundamental counters trading at attractive levels, BMS advised investors to take advantage of the present market weakness focusing on the stocks that are supported by healthy financial performance.